The Potter of Firsk and Other Stories (59 page)

“It’s spooky enough,” said Art.

He turned into the overgrown driveway. “There’s where we parked,” said Jean. “There’s where we had our fire.” The headlights picked out the circle of dead gray ash. Art stopped the car, set the brakes, took his flashlight from the glove-compartment.

They sat in the dark a few moments, watching and listening. Cricket sounds came out of the night; the half-moon rode pale and lonely through the ragged black trees. Art opened the door, got out. Don and Jean followed. They went to the patch of gravel, wan and gray in the moonlight. The rocks crunched under their feet. They halted, disinclined to make sounds so incongruous and intrusive.

“We were right here,” Jean whispered. “See that window there? That’s the living room.”

They stood staring at the dark old house. Far away a dog barked, lonesome and mellow. Art muttered. “I’ve always heard that if you come out looking for these things, they never happen. They come when you don’t expect them…I’m gonna take a look inside.”

He went around to the front porch. The yard was a waste of dead milk-weed stalks and feathery fox-tail, bone-color in the moonlight. Jean and Don came behind. Art mounted the steps, paused.

Jean and Don stopped. After a moment Don asked, “Do you feel it, Mr. Marsile? Something cold and lonely?”

“Yeah. Something like that.”

Art continued more slowly. The feeling of grief, of desolation, of precious remembrance lost and gone, grew stronger.

They entered the house. The room was dark. Was that a glow? A flicker of red? A whimper, a sob? If so, it came and went; the woe vanished abruptly. Art drew a deep breath. “That’s how it was before,” whispered Jean. “Only worse.”

Art flicked on his flashlight. Don pointed. “That’s the stick I used. That’s where the thing hung.”

Outside a car turned into the driveway: the State Highway Patrol. A searchlight swept up the steps, picked up Art Marsile on the porch with Don and Jean close behind him.

A trooper got out of the car. “Hello Art…What’s going on?”

“I’m trying to find out.”

“We got a report of a disturbance up here, thought we’d take a look.”

“I thought I’d look too.”

“See anything?”

“Nothing I’d swear to. It’s quiet now, that’s for sure.”

“Yeah. Well, sergeant told me to check.” The trooper climbed the steps, flashed his light around the room. He turned back to Jean and Don. “You kids were in the bunch up here tonight?”

“Yes.”

“You saw those ghosts?”

Don told him what they’d seen. The trooper listened without comment, flashed his light around the room once again. He shook his head. “Looks to me like somebody was playing a trick.” He went to the patrol car. Hisses, crackling, a voice from the radio. He spoke into the microphone, made his report. “Well, I checked. I’ll be on my way.”

The patrol car backed out, drove away. Art, Jean and Don went to their own car, followed. They drove down the hill in silence.

“What do you think, Dad?” Jean asked presently.

Art made a non-committal sound. “Lots of funny things happen in the world. I guess this is another of them.”

“But you believe us, don’t you?”

“I believe you, all right.”

“But
why
?” asked Don. “Why should there be ghosts?”

Art shook his head. “Nobody knows, nobody seems to care. It’s not fashionable to believe in ghosts. Let alone see them.”

“I know what I saw,” said Don. “It was
there
.”

“But what was it?” asked Jean. “A spirit? A ghost? A memory?”

“It’s just one of the things nobody knows the answers to—and doesn’t want to know.”

“I want to know,” said Don. “There’s got to be a reason. Nothing happens without a reason.
Some
kind of reason.”

Art agreed. “That’s what we’re brought up to believe. But whenever there’s something out of the ordinary, people shrug their shoulders and pretend it didn’t happen. Miracles, things being thrown around a house, ghosts, apparitions, spirit messages—you read about ’em all the time. The newspaper prints the news, people read it, then go back about their business. I don’t understand it. There’s a big field of knowledge here—as big as all of science, maybe bigger. And nobody dares to look into it. There’s thousands of people digging for pots in Egypt and counting the field-mice in Afghanistan…Why don’t a few look into this stuff? Is it because it’s too big, too scary? Maybe they’re afraid to be laughed at. I don’t know.”

“I never knew you thought that way, Daddy,” said Jean.

“Think what way?” asked Art. “I’m just a hard-headed working-man. When I see something I want to know why. And when something funny happens, I don’t try to kid myself it doesn’t exist…I’ll tell you kids something I never told no one else. I don’t want you spreading it either, you hear?”

“I won’t say anything.”

“I won’t either.”

“Well, you know what a dowser is? Some people call ’em water-witches.”

“Sure,” said Don. “They find water with a forked stick.”

“Yeah. Well, I own quite a bit of land. Some good citrus land, some not so good. There’s one tract I got out at the edge of the desert, about four hundred acres, dry as ashes. If I could get water, I might grow something, but it’s out of the irrigation district. One day I heard of this dowser and hired him to walk over the four hundred acres. He walked back and forth and his stick bumped and jumped. He was kinda puzzled at first, then he said, ‘Mr. Marsile, you drill here. You’ll get water. It’s about two hundred feet down, you should be able to draw about twenty gallons a minute.’ Then he said, ‘Over here, if you drill, you’ll hit oil. It’s deep, it’ll cost you money to reach it, but it’s there. Lots of it.’”

“Daddy—you never told me this!”

“I didn’t intend to. Not just yet. Anyway I went down for the water, I hit her on the nose at two hundred feet. I pump just about twenty gallons a minute. As for the oil, I’ve had three geologists to check the ground. They all say the same. Nothing. Wrong formation, wrong lay of the land, the wind even blows the wrong way. I don’t know. I can’t get it out of my mind. It’ll cost twenty or thirty thousand—maybe more—to run a test-hole…I could swing it, but I’d have to go into debt. I don’t like to do that.”

Jean and Don were silent. They passed through the main part of Orange City, crossed the Los Angeles freeway, and returned to Art Marsile’s house, under the four big pepper trees.

“Come on in,” Art told Don. “Jean can make us some hot chocolate. It’s too late for coffee. We’d never get to sleep.”

Hugh was sitting in the living room, reading. His feet, in black socks, were long and limp as dead salmon. “Where you all been?”

“We saw the ghost, Hugh!” Jean called out triumphantly.

Hugh laughed uproariously.

“It’s true!” cried Jean.

“Of all the silly tripe!”

“Don’t believe me then.” Jean went haughtily into the kitchen to make hot chocolate.

Hugh, still grinning, looked at Art. “What’re they trying to cook up?”

“They sure saw something, Hugh.”

Hugh sat up straight in astonishment. “You don’t believe in ghosts?”

Art said evenly, “I have an open mind. They saw something, that’s for sure. Ghosts, spooks—what difference does it make what you call ’em? Nobody knows anything about the subject. The field’s wide open.”

Don said, “I wonder if there’s anyplace you could go to learn about these things?”

“Certainly at none of the universities. None that I ever heard of, anyway. After all, what could they teach? Ghost-hunting? Mind-reading? There’s not even a name for the subject.”

Hugh laughed derisively. “Who’d want to take such ridiculous courses?”

“I would,” said Don. “I never thought about it before, but it’s like Mr. Marsile says; nobody knows anything about these things—and they’re all around us. Suppose the government spent a hundred million dollars in research, like they did on the atom bomb? Who knows what they’d turn up?”

“It’s not a proper field for investigation,” said Hugh after a minute. “It conflicts with what the Scriptures tell us.”

“It wasn’t considered proper to teach evolution either,” said Art. “I see now where the ministers are swingin’ around to sayin’ it’s right after all.”

“Not the real four-square preachers!” cried Hugh indignantly. “Nobody’ll ever convince me I was descended from a monkey. And nobody’ll ever convince me there’s ghosts because the Bible is against it.”

Jean brought in the chocolate. “I wish for once, Hugh, that every time we’re trying to talk you wouldn’t bring the Bible into it. I know what I saw tonight, whether it’s in the Bible or whether it isn’t.”

“Well, all this to the side,” said Art, “it’s an interesting subject. Everybody’s interested in it. But everybody’s afraid to look into it scientifically.”

“I wouldn’t be,” said Don. “I’d really like to.”

Art shook his head. “You’d find the going mighty tough, Don. You’d need money, and nobody’d give you money. People would laugh at you. You’d be starting cold, from scratch; you’d even have to invent your tools. You’ve got such a big field you couldn’t cover it all, and you wouldn’t hardly know where to start. Does dowsing for water have any connection to ghosts? How does this telepathy business work? Can anybody read the future? If so, does that make time the same kind of stuff as telepathy? Is telepathy the same stuff as ghosts? Are ghosts alive? Can they think? Are they spirits or just imprints, like footsteps? If they’re alive where do they live? What’s it like where they live? If they give off light, where do they draw the power? There’s thousands of questions.”

Don sat silently, chocolate forgotten.

Hugh said huskily, “Those are things we were never meant to know.”

“I can’t believe that, Hugh,” said Art. “Anything our mind is able to understand we got a right to know.” He put down his cup. “Well, I’m gonna turn in. Don’t you kids set up till all hours. Good night.” He left the room.

“Golly,” said Don, in an awed voice. “When you think of it, it almost takes your breath away—this tremendous knowledge that nobody knows.”

Jean said, “There must be
somebody
studying it. After all, we’re not the only people in the world with ideas.”

“Seems to me I’ve read of a group in England,” said Don grudgingly. “A society for psychic research. Tomorrow let’s go to the library and find out.”

“Okay. We’ll start the Orange City Society for Psychic Research.”

Hugh said coldly, “You ought to know better than talk like that. It’s impious.”

“Don’t talk nonsense,” said Jean crossly. “Why on earth is it impious to talk?”

“Because there’s one authority on right and wrong—the Bible. If you sin and go to Hell, you suffer the torments of the damned. If you live a Christian life, you go to Heaven. That’s the Gospel. There’s nothing about spirits, or ghosts, or any of that other stuff.”

“The Bible isn’t necessarily right,” said Don.

Hugh was astounded. “Of course it’s right! Every word of it is right!”

Don shrugged. “Anyway, I’m going to check on this psychic research business. I’m going to be a scientist. I’m going to find out what ghosts are, what they’re made of, what makes them tick. Nothing happens without a reason; that’s common sense. I’m going to find out that reason.”

“I am too,” said Jean. “I’m just as interested as you are.”

“It’s evil knowledge,” intoned Hugh. “You’ll go to Hell. You’ll live in eternal torment.”

“How come you’re such an authority on Hell and torment?” Don asked.

“I made my choice tonight,” said Hugh. “I gave myself to Christ. I promised to preach the Holy Gospel, to fight the Devil and all his works.”

Don rose to his feet. “Well, that answered my question…Good night, Jean.”

Jean went with him out to the car; when she came back Hugh was waiting for her. “Good night, Hugh,” she said, and slipped past him. “Just a minute,” he said.

“What for?”

“I want to warn you about what you’re doing. It’s evil.” His voice took on volume. “There’s enough wickedness in the world without inventing more. Don Berwick is going to Hell. You don’t want to join him there, do you?”

“I don’t believe in Hell,” said Jean sweetly.

“It’s in the Bible, it’s the Holy Word. They that sin shall suffer fire and pain without end, the furnaces shall open for them, they’ll be doomed forever. That’s the Christian gospel.”

“It’s no such thing,” said Jean. “I know this much: Christ was kind and gentle. He tried to get people to be decent to each other. All this talk about fire and torment is a lot of nonsense. And I’m going to bed.”

III

The school year came to an end; both Don and Hugh were graduated. The Korean War had started; both Don and Hugh received greetings from the President. Hugh won a medical exemption by reason of his pitifully flat feet and his extreme height—he now stood almost seven feet tall. Don was drafted and assigned to a paratroop battalion. Ten months passed, and Don’s mother received news that Don had disappeared in action and must be presumed dead.